A Chekhov Circus

A guide to the short stories of Anton Chekhov

Category: Published in Volume 9 of the Garnett translations

  • No. 2 – In the Coach-House

    This is a profound story, brief as a flicker of fire. A group of workmen are playing a game of cards in the stable of a manor house. The master of the house has shot himself in the head. The men gossip.  The men are playing a game of “kings,” and periodically one of them…

  • No. 10 – The Schoolmistress

    This is a beautiful, concise tale of a lonely and loveless woman, a teacher in a rural school. Her work is largely unappreciated, if not completely ignored, by the local government and population. On a regular basis she must travel to town to collect her pay, and on one of these trips she meets a…

  • No. 49 – A Transgression

    This is a minor tale, but it’s well done. In fact, it’s among the best twist endings Chekhov ever delivered. The story is extremely short and the whole point is the twist at the end, so if you don’t want a spoiler, just skip the next two paragraphs. “A Transgression” is the story of a…

  • No. 50 – On Official Duty

    Chekhov wrote quite a few stories set in waystations of one sort or another – mean little inns, railway stations, etc. – where folk of different classes and backgrounds are forced to cohabit with one another, if only for a night or two. “On the Road,” “The Post,” “Easter Eve,” “The Witch”…. really it’s a…

  • No. 62 – Sorrow

    A mingy man waits too long to get his wife to the doctor’s.

  • No. 22 – The Requiem

    This is an extremely economical tale of a man who is so deeply troubled that his daughter became an actress that, even after her death, he cannot stop himself from referring to her as a “harlot.” The man, a simple shopkeeper named Andrey Andreyitch, submits a note to his priest, asking that his daughter be…

  • No. 132 – The First-Class Passenger

    Chatting up a stranger on a train, an engineer laments the fact that for all his accomplishments, he is not as well known as actors, writers and the like.

  • No. 133 – The Head-Gardener’s Story

    A saintly doctor is murdered, but no one can believe that anyone could actually kill so good a man.

  • No. 23 – A Lady’s Story

    This is an unusual entry in the Chekhov library, written in the first person and narrated by a woman. It’s a good story, maybe even great. In any case, it’s very tight, just seven pages long, with a breathless, thrilling opening: Natalya and Pyotr are riding through the fields as a storm approaches. The rains…

  • No. 26 – Champagne

    This is (for Chekhov) an unusual, foxy little story narrated by a bad man. The narrator works at a godforsaken railway station, where “for fifteen miles around there was not one human habitation, not one woman, not one decent tavern.” The station constitutes a tiny world unto itself: “My wife and I; a deaf and…